The vital police mission: reclaim our streets

By Philip Johnston

12:01AM BST 16 Aug 2007

Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Cheshire, triggered a nationwide debate this week over Britain's lawless streets and booze-fuelled thugs. He called for the age at which alcohol can be bought to be raised to 21, for a ban on drinking in public and for more police powers to tackle anti-social behaviour. Would his prescription work?

Age limit: There have been periodic calls for Britain to follow America and raise the legal age for purchasing alcohol from 18 to 21.

The connection between violence and drinking is well documented in Britain, though there are plenty of countries where the age limit is lower that do not have our problems, suggesting this is as much a cultural issue as anything else.

Mr Fahy said one of the biggest problems here is the availability of cheap alcohol to under-age teenagers. Although there are tough penalties for selling alcohol to under 18s, it is easier for a teenager to pretend to be 18 than 21 since ID can also easily be faked.

On the other hand, 21 is no longer the age at which an individual officially becomes an adult so why should adults be prevented from doing what they want? On this basis, why should the age not be 22 or 24?

Related Articles

However, there has undoubtedly been a rise in young ''binge'' drinkers. In a survey last year of 14,000 children in 89 secondary schools in England, Scotland and Wales, one in five boys aged 13 and 14 claimed to have downed five or more alcoholic drinks in a single session. The proportion rose to a half of students aged 15 and 16.

More than half the pupils in the higher age group had been "seriously drunk" and a large minority were regular drinkers. A recent Home Office survey of 3,000 licensed outlets found one in five selling to under-age customers. The age limit leads to big cultural differences. When Tony Blair's son Euan was found drunk in London aged 16 the matter was dismissed as a youthful indiscretion. When George W Bush's 19-year-old twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, were caught drinking they were threatened with prosecution.

New laws: There has been an avalanche of new laws to deal with anti-social behaviour. The police have powers to impose curfews, local authorities can designate areas as non-alcoholic zones, with on-the-spot penalties. From next week, police will have a new power to disperse teenagers from a specified area. Yet Mr Fahy said they were not enough. He wanted police to be able to order groups of young people home when they are causing a nuisance without having to designate a whole area a dispersal zone. There was a time when the police told a group of youngsters to break up and go home that they would have done so. Now, they need special powers.

Mr Fahy says the fact that many of them are drunk causes them to become more aggressive and less willing to accept adult or even police admonishment.

He also wants the current presumption that drinking in public is allowed unless a council bans it in a particular place, like a town centre, should be reversed. Instead, the whole of a town or city would designated as a no-drinking area and in selected areas it would be allowed.

But this could cause problems for pubs whose customers drink at tables on the pavement, an increasingly popular phenomenon now they cannot smoke inside.

Price: Mr Fahy said: ''Alcohol is too cheap and too readily available and is too strong. Young people cannot handle it. I would like to see the price of alcohol raised, particularly higher strength beers.''

The Government has long voiced its concern over the availability of cheap drink either in pubs, through happy hour promotions or in supermarkets, which sell beer at a huge discount.

In January, the Competition Commission criticised supermarkets for selling more than £100 million worth of alcohol at below cost prices - as "loss leaders''- last year.

The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) found cans of Foster's and Carling lager on shop shelves for the equivalent of 54p per pint, compared with 49p for the most expensive bottled water.

Plans have been announced to curb cheap drink promotions in Scotland and experts want them outlawed across Britain.

However, the argument is why the majority of customers who do not behave badly should lose out on low prices because of the misbehaviour of mindless louts.

What next? The Government says it shares Mr Fahy's concern about young drinkers and has recently announced a new alcohol strategy. Gordon Brown has also ordered a review of the way more flexible licensing laws have been operating.

Ministers say they will target supermarkets selling cheap beers and wine and they blame low prices for a rise in drink-related illnesses and city centre disorder. They have also hinted at laws forcing the industry to act more responsibly.

The Home Office is considering a ban on happy hours and on advertising and sponsorship, on which the industry spends £250 million a year.

However, Meg Hillier, the new minister in charge of this policy, yesterday ruled out increasing the drinking age to 21.

She also said there were "no great plans" for a blanket ban on public drinking, saying local councils should decide what was appropriate.

In the end, this is a cultural problem which, as Mr Fahy said, is everyone's responsibility not just the police.

But the role of the police in reclaiming the streets is still at the heart of this debate. There may be more police than ever but fewer are seen out and about.